


Peacekeeper Wishes and Jalapeno Dreams

by ceallaig



Category: Farscape
Genre: Gen, John and ... pretty much everybody, blame this one on chat conversation, but nothing goes too far, utter complete insanity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-17
Updated: 2013-05-17
Packaged: 2017-12-12 02:29:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/806111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceallaig/pseuds/ceallaig
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John buys himself a treat at a bazaar and ends up with a bit more 'pleasure' than he bargained for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Peacekeeper Wishes and Jalapeno Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s note: This all started with four words spoken one night in chat: “John in a Speedo.” I let my imagination go from there – but I did my best to keep it PG-13, darn it anyway … It also stems from my personal belief that anyone who’s masochistic enough to bite into food that bites back deserves whatever they get …
> 
> Thanks: to Jen for beta, brainstorming, and one of the better lines in this thing, and to Steve MacDonald once again for inspirational music. And to Robin Leach, for reasons that will become apparent …
> 
> The usual disclaimer: I don’t own these folks, yada yada yada, you know the drill…  
> Spoilers: Very minor from TTBRC, Princess, a few other things, but nothing to write home about.

The bazaar had been pretty dull for the most part, nothing I hadn’t seen before…. Damn, think about that one a minute, would you? ‘Nothing I hadn’t seen before’, from a fish out of water Earthman! The smell of the sauce caught my attention from three meters away – spicy, garlicky, and good enough to make my mouth water. I had to try it.

“Care for a sample, young sir?” the little green guy running the booth asked, and held out a dish of sauce with a side of what looked like Fritos. I picked up one of the crunchies, dipped it in, and popped it in my mouth.

My eyes started to tear up, my nose made like January in Maine, my tongue gave up tasting for Lent, and I had trouble breathing. I must’ve worried the little green guy, because two or three of his tentacles started fluttering. “Young sir, are you well?”

I sucked in a deep breath and my voice came back: “Buddy, I am so far past ‘well’ you can’t find it on the chart! What IS this stuff?”

“Kalorian devik sauce, one of my people’s specialties. I take it this meets with the young sir’s approval?”

“Holy Mama, I have died and gone to heaven! Yeah, I think you could say that. How much is it?”

“For a connoisseur like you, I believe we can come to an equitable arrangement.”

“Cool, just tell me how much.” I soaked another chip – you know me: I’ll try anything once, twice if I like it, three times just to make sure. I caught sight of a certain radiant ex-Peacekeeper and waved. “C’mere, Aeryn, you have to try this!”

She came over with that ‘what the frell is he up to now?’ look in her eyes. She sniffed the Frito and her nose wrinkled. “You expect me to eat that?”

“Hey, live a little! You want to tell me the food cubes couldn’t stand some improvement?”

“They could, but I’m not sure this qualifies. I’ve heard of devik sauce, and I’ve been told it’s quite popular on some of the farming colonies.”

“Nice to know there’s a few folks in this neck of the woods with some taste.”

Aeryn didn’t bat an eye. “They use it to treat pest infestations on their livestock.”

I looked into her eyes and decided never to teach her to play poker – she didn’t have any ‘tells’ at all. I shrugged. “Well, if you don’t want to share, that just means there’s more for me. How much for five bottles of the sauce?” I asked, turning back to the little green guy.

He named a price that pretty much wiped out my walking around money, but what the hell – you didn’t go into Emeril’s in New Orleans and expect to come out with much more than lint in your pocket either. I plunked down the cash, took the bag the proprietor handed me, and hooked my arm in Aeryn’s. She didn’t try to pull away, and I bit back a grin—maybe the ice princess was starting to thaw out a bit. Things were definitely looking up.

 

Okay, yeah, it’s my own damn fault for eating the stuff in the first place, but who knew? I mean, where I come from, hot sauce is practically one of the four main food groups, right up there with Bisquick, Crisco and barbecue. I know I overdid it, but it was hard to stop once I got started. Kinda like potato chips, or Auth Ruth’s Rice Krispie treats. And I think I came up with a combination or two Rygel wouldn’t even have tried. Finally when I simply couldn’t eat another bite, I took a quick shower and headed for bed. Like I usually did on a full stomach, I fell asleep right away, but it didn’t seem like more than a minute or two before a voice was calling my name: “Oh, Johnny!”

The voice was sweet, female, and familiar, but from way back in the past. I sat up in bed, still dressed – funny, but I was sure I’d been in just my Calvins when I went to sleep – and looked around the room. The voice was coming from out in the corridor, so I swung my feet over the edge of the bed – yeah, boots still on, too, go figure – and looked out the door grate. And rubbed my eyes, and looked again.  
There was Karen Shaw, looking just like she had that night in the back of the four-by. She crooked a finger at me, the door slid open, and she came up, giving me a long up and down with her eyes. “Oh, yeah, you grew up good, Johnny. Real pity I had to move away that summer. Maybe I can make up for that now … “

She tugged my vest off while she laid a liplock on me that almost made me forget about penalties for statutory rape … almost. I pulled back and Karen disappeared, but I noticed I wasn’t alone. Two more women came out of the shadows – Gilina and Alex. Alex was still spectacular, and Gilina looked incredible, especially for a dead woman. “Well, well, looks like somebody primed the pump for us,” Alex purred as they came up on either side of me. So there I was with two beautiful women, and I did what any other man in my place would have done – I went on autopilot and let nature take its course. And don’t give me that look -- I’m a guy, guys dream about this stuff! Hands were busy, my t-shirt took a hike, and I was in the zone when a booming voice totally derailed my concentration:

“Welcome to Lifestyles of the Rich and Brainless, Uncharted Territories Edition! Here we are in the utilitarian but elegant confines of Moya, where its inhabitants carry on in ways that would make Hugh Hefner green with envy!”

“What the frell … ?? But I never even WATCHED that show!” I started to protest. Then I remembered all those late nights planning the Farscape project, with the TV droning in the background, and supposed it could have been worse. I could have been channeling Letterman or Leno … or even that gashole Kilborn. “Uh, just ignore him and he’ll go away, girls … “

“Ignore who, John?” Gilina asked.

I looked at both of them, and they looked back at me with honest confusion. And this was with Robin Leach in the background crooning a rendition of “Of All the Girls I’ve Loved Before”! At least I think that was the song; let’s just say Willie and Julio wouldn’t lose any sleep over the guy’s pipes. I gave a mental shrug. Fine – I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of a voyeur, but if he didn’t cramp the girls’ style, I could work with it. And for all I knew it was the only kind of jollies he ever got. Shame to spoil his fun. “Never mind. Where were we?”

“Right about … there …“

“Okay, you blond bimbettes, haul it!” All three of us, and Robin too, looked up at Jenavia and all of us got a little buggy when we saw the pulse pistol in her hands. Robin hid behind one of Moya’s ‘ribs’, and the girls evaporated, with Gilina shooting the Disruptor a pouty little, “Spoilsport … “ Then Jenavia put down the gun, sashayed up to me and … well, let’s just say the look she gave me made me wonder if Moya’s temperature sensors were screwed up again. “Why are you messing with the second stringers when the varsity team is in town?” she asked, running a finger down my bare chest.

 

Okay, as if it weren’t already freaky enough – not only was she using slang she shouldn’t even have known, the woman who’d tried to slap my teeth into the next quadrant the last time we were together was coming on to me like my best fantasies. Now, back at Prince NoNeck’s funeral, she may just have been putting on a good show, but lordy that woman can pack a wallop. And I always wondered if part of it wasn’t because of being the dumpee, not the dumper. I should have been heading for the hills, especially with Robin continuing his commentary about ‘hot and cold running women’, but decided to tough it out. (And if you’re wondering about Aeryn – well, this WAS a dream and anyway, she wasn’t there, was she? It’s like the song says, ‘if you can’t be with the one you love … ‘) 

“Well, coach, if that’s the case, where do I suit up?”

“Who said anything about suiting up?” she said, her hands sliding up and into my hair. My arms went around her, but before I could do anything constructive about her clothes (somehow we’d managed to migrate back to my quarters, though I didn’t remember moving) there was another voice. “And just what were you planning to do with my husband, Jenavia?”

I’m getting a little tired of my head being a stand in for Grand Central Station …

“Husband, Katralla?” Jenavia was still purring, but there was more tiger than kitten in it now. “I hardly think a shotgun wedding counts, and I’m sure the empress had it annulled the microt she could. On the other hand, blackmail was just about the only way to land a pasty faced little wimp like you a real man.”

Katralla’s eyes flashed, and I was thinking, oh man, do NOT piss off a pregnant woman … “Well, it beats frelling your way to the throne, or did you think your little song and dance with my brother actually fooled anyone?” She gave me a look that made my stomach drop. “Honestly, John, I really thought you had better taste than this.”

“Careful, Princess, you’ll upset the baby. Oh, that’s right, that was more of Mommy Dearest’s doing, wasn’t it? She didn’t want to leave anything that important to chance. Or was is she didn’t want to leave anything that important up to you?”

“Whoa, ladies,” I tried to cut in, “this is gettin’ real … “

“Butt out, John,” Jenavia spat. “This stuck up bitch needs a lesson in manners … “

“And I suppose a Peacekeeper tralk is going to teach me?”

Jenavia made a lunge before I could stop her, and the catfight commenced. Discretion being the better part of valor, I was discreet as hell and did a decent imitation of Jesse Owens. I skidded around a corner and almost ran into Robin again, who was in the middle of interviewing someone I couldn’t quite see: “Yeah, he’s real decorative and all, but she was right, his taste in women is just … “

All right, just why in hezmana was Furlow there? And why ask why? Like any of this made sense from the git-go? I MUSTA been trippin’ …

“And his fashion sense – we won’t even go there,” Furlow was saying to Robin. “I mean, just look at him! The cargo pants were bad enough, but those!”

Coming from somebody who dressed like a reject from a HazMat team, that hurt, and I started to protest until I happened to glance down and had to bite back a yelp. Pants, boots and socks were gone, and all I had on was a pair of the most godawful surf baggies in creation. They would have scared that mambo shirt Scorpy wore. What was truly frightening about them, though, was that once upon a time they had really existed. One of my sisters gave them to me as a joke, and I think I used them to wax the T-Bird one day.

“But, let’s face it – with a body like that, a woman could forgive him a lot.” Furlow batted her eyes at me, and I felt my stomach do a back flip. “You know, John, I might just have been a teensy bit hasty when I traded the repairs on your module for the wormhole info. It might have been a lot of fun to see what else you were willing to give up. Maybe not as profitable, but … “

“Sorry, Furlow, but you blew your chance, babe. Better luck next time. See, I’m kinda taken these days.” I was backing up, slowly, scanning the corners to see who else was going to come out of the woodwork.

“Oh, not yet you’re not, but you might be soon, I think,” she winked.

“What are you talking … oh frell!” We were in a different room again, and I whipped around to see the showpiece in the middle of the room – Natira’s giant hamster ball from hell. “Oh, this is not good … “

“And now we come to the crown jewel of Moya, the playroom!” Robin’s blaring voice shook the walls. “A place where Caligula could have taken lessons!”

“This room isn’t even ON Moya, numbnuts!” I yelled. “At least get your geography right!”

“That can always be corrected, John … “ a slithery voice said from behind me. Of course, Big Bad n’ Blue had to be here, and she brought along reinforcements – Matala, the cobra on two legs. Talk about a couple of dominatrix wannabes …

I’d had just about enough. “You’re slipping, Frau Blucher – just can’t handle me on your own anymore, huh? And just for the record, my prostate’s in good shape. But if you want to have some fun, go ahead. I’ve got no problem with you two frellin’ with my head – just confine it to the one on my shoulders, okay?”

“We’ll see. But for starters, I think you’re just a bit overdressed. Don’t you, Matala?”

“Definitely. Don’t worry, John, you’ll like this … “ The Scorvian snaked out a hand, grabbed the waistband of the surf baggies and ripped. They gave with no struggle at all, and I started doing September Morn until I realized I was still dressed … if you could call a barely decent blue Speedo ‘dressed’. “Much better. After all we don’t want you catching cold.”

“Oh, concerned about my health now? How nice. Let’s get this over with, gals, I’ve got a bus to catch.”

Now, maybe you’re thinking, why wasn’t he more worried here? Well, I’ll tell ya -- I must have this incredibly healthy psyche, because any time I’ve ever had a nightmare, there always comes a point where things just get so ‘out there’ that I either start laughing or start getting pissed. By this point, I pretty much had one nerve left and these two yahoos were getting on it, big time. It was time for the Good Witch to come in, let me click the ruby slippers and send me back to Kansas. Second star to the right and straight on till morning…

Well, she wasn’t quite Glinda, but she’d do just fine. “All right, this is getting silly.” Zhaan marched in, not in her usual blue gown but in, of all things, a British major’s uniform. I made a mental note that, if I ever got home, I was never watching Monty Python again. The ‘playroom’ disappeared, along with the dungeon mistresses, and I was on the Terrace, fully dressed. I looked back at Zhaan, and she was her normal serene self again. “It’s time to wake up now, John.”

“Amen to that. Thanks, Zhaan. Trust Mama Bear to come looking after her cub.”

“My pleasure, John. And in future, you might want to consider moderation.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Robin (okay, what the frell was he still doing there?) brayed, “And with that, we take our leave for this edition of Lifestyles of the Rich and Brainless. I’m Robin Leach, and as always may your days be filled with Peacekeeper wishes and jalapeno dreams!”

I may not have ever watched the show, but even I knew that was way wrong. However, it didn’t matter anymore. Zhaan reached out toward my cheek, smiling …

… and a strong hand was shaking my shoulder. “John, wake up!” My eyes popped open and I was back in my own quarters, with no weird booby traps in sight. But there was an unexpected visitor. “Wha … what are you doing here, Aeryn?”

“I was going by and you were thrashing in your sleep. I thought you might be having a reaction to the devik sauce.”

“I was, you have no idea.” I pushed up on one elbow, lifted the gold blanket and peeked under. Yup, there were the Calvins. “Thank God, right where they should be … “ I sighed in relief.

Aeryn was fighting to keep a straight face, and losing the battle. “Does human male equipment have a tendency to wander? Should I keep an eye out from now on?”

“No, just the human male mind that’s behind it sometimes. Never mind, it’s a long story. I’ll tell you a little later.” A belch rumbled up from somewhere in my lower intestines, and I felt my face flame. “Sorry.”

“Considering how much you ate last night, I’m glad that’s all you’re doing. Since you appear to be functional, I’ll let you get dressed.”

She turned toward the door, and I snagged her hand gently for a moment. “Thanks for the wake up call.”

She nodded and left, disengaging her hand a little slower than I thought she might. I sat up on the edge of the bed with an idiot grin all over my face -- all was right with the world … or at least a little less bad.

But I had some serious heartburn going, and my head could’ve been better. I got up  
slowly, dressed and headed toward the medlab, making a quick detour to the messroom to dump what remained of the devik sauce down the drain. Just hoped it wouldn’t corrode the pipes, or make Moya sick.

“Good morning, John, sleep well?”

“Not really, Jool, and not so loud, okay? What have you got in the line of Alka Seltzer or Pepto?” She gave me a blank look. “Head and stomach problem,” I translated.

“I think we can take care of that. Overdid a bit last night, didn’t you?” She started mixing powders together and dumped them into a glass of water.

“You could say that. Uh … are you sure you know what you’re doing there?” Her concoction started bubbling and smoking, and I wasn’t sure if it was my eyes or not, but I would’ve sworn there were a few sparks coming off it.

“Yes, I do. Don’t worry, John, you’ll like this … “

And poor Jool will probably never understand why I shrieked like a scalded cat, knocked the glass out of her hand and bolted out of the room.


End file.
